It’s 6:19 AM here in the tent camping area of Lot 2 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The other three are still sleeping, but I’m hoping that as everyone around us wakes up, they will too.
It was crazy last night, but it was tame back where we are. Next year Amy wants to go even earlier, and it’d been nice to have had a fire going. No loss, though, because I was pretty tired.
Oh, there’s much more movement from the others. Time to get ready!
My radio was at work. I am set for Sunday.
Forecast for Sunday at Indy: Sunny, with a high near 79. South southeast wind between 6 and 9 mph.
Please! I need to know whether these curtains look right! In the JCPenney Catalog, the image of these exact curtains looked gorgeous. I decided against using the clips (as pictured in the catalog). Keep in mind that the curtains do have to be hemmed (and pressed). What’s your opinion?
Apparently Lakeshore did not prepare me adequately for being the proper homemaker. I have know idea how to decorate my house! The opposite window will most likely have just the multicolored curtain, shears, and a swag at the top. I’m still waiting for my installer (ahem…) to help me with that side.
(Comments from old site:)
I think the rod needs to go higher and then maybe get holdbacks to pull them back and leave the sheers down. They have gorgeous metal ones, probably to match the rod. That is just my opinion. They are beautiful though!
You mean, the rods should go above the top (half-moon) window? Yikes-then I’d have to order new curtains for that length! Hmm. The holdbacks are a good idea—actually there are fabric ones that came with the curtains, but I never considered the metal ones. I will have to ponder. Thank you for your help!
Well, maybe just try the metal hold backs. They might help the most. I hope that works! Have a great weekend
Brad attends the midnight showing of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
On a whim, my friend Ralf from work and I bought tickets to see the new Indiana Jones flick. I enjoyed it a lot, but now I’m pretty tired and am going to bed. It suffices to say that if you liked the first three, and if you don’t have a fundamental problem with sequels, you’ll like this one, too.
A test: Think back to when you first saw the other two sequels, especially if you saw them in theaters. At the time, were you bothered by Indy’s companions? Or the use of broad stereotypes for his opponents? How about the basing of the stories on unbelievable mythologies that were incongruous with those of the previous films? If you were, you may be bothered by the same sorts of things here. However, if you were bothered by any of this, did you eventually get over it?
It’s more Indiana Jones. Enjoy it.
(Comment from old site:)
The monkeys were a bit much for me. 8^) Other than that, I liked it.
The last two things I had to do for the Saturn were to get an oil change and replace the post-catalytic oxygen sensor.
Today I took Elena out just to get out of the house, and we ended up at Wal-Mart for no particular reason. While there, I discovered to my surprise that Wal-Mart, or at least ours, does oil changes, with the nicest part being the fact that you can shop while they do it. Apparently they’re not allowed to advertise the fact that they do this, nor are they allowed to have external signs about it — something about zoning.
That left only the oxygen sensor. I tried removing it yesterday, but those things are, to put it mildly, difficult to move. I tried using a special ⅞” socket and running the car for a while to let things heat up, but when that didn’t work I checked more information online. People tend to use lots of penetrating oil, some heat things up with at least a propane torch, and some mentioned leaving the old one in and tapping a new hole.
Before Elena and I left the house, I called a local garage, Mo’s Garage and Towing. They removed the old sensor and put the new one I bought on Amazon.com, and they did it for fifty bucks. I would have spent somewhat more than that had I not done the other parts like checking the code and buying the sensor myself, so I still came out ahead.
Because Helen and I reviewed all our actions regarding home improvement and automobile maintenance, and because my employer asked all its employees to take a couple days of vacation this month, I found myself doing some things around the house. Here’s a list of at least some of the things I got done from Thursday through Sunday:
Phew.
Recently I’ve started trying to improve my productivity by making things simpler. Some of the things I’ve done to do this:
Use an RSS newsreader. On my PC, I’m using FeedDemon, which also synchronizes with their site so I can read my news feeds when I’m on another computer such as Helen’s Mac. With it, I can see right away when dozens of sites like Economist.com, Ars Technica, or Sarah or Amy’s blogs are updated without having to spend time visiting each site.
Use a task management system. I’ve read a bit about a system called GTD. I’ve also put most of the home tasks I have into a program called OmniFocus, which unfortunately is only available for Macs. I’ve begun investigating alternatives for my PC, but I have yet to find something with the elegance, speed, and convenience of OmniFocus. Thinking Rock, which is free, comes close, and I may begin using something like it for work.
Keep inboxes empty. I actually took some time and completely emptied my inboxes. (Check out Inbox Zero for information on how you can attempt this as well.) As a result of emptying my inboxes, I get a bunch of actions, which then go into the task management system.
I’m liking my new system.
For lunch today, I got myself a glass of water to drink. Helen asked for water from the jug she purchased at Meijer. I tasted water from each glass, then told Helen I couldn’t tell the difference if my life depended on it.
Helen insists she can taste the difference between water from our RO unit and other bottled water. We decided to administer a taste test to Helen.
I put water from the RO unit and from the jug she bought from Meijer into three glasses. I didn’t tell her which was which, nor did I tell her which water type got two glasses. Her mission was to pick out the odd glass and tell me what kind of water was in it. (I had read about this technique for taste testing, but I couldn’t find where I’d read it.) There were six (23 – 2) possibilities, ignoring the option of tricking her by putting the same water in all three.
Helen picked one glass as our RO water and the other two as Meijer water, failing to identify one of the two glasses as RO water. I did a little victory dance. Katrina and Elena, who were eating lunch at the time, enjoyed the entire spectacle.
In all fairness, I should mention that she only had a small amount from each glass. It’s possible that drinking a larger amount would help her identify the water sources. At the very least, this proves that the water is not as dramatically different as some have insisted.
(Comments from old site:)
Today, Brad tried to trick me. I asked for a glass of water. He turned on the RO unit and brought me a glass. I drank the entire glass and declared that this was, indeed, the Meijer water. Brad confessed.
I was loud in turning on the drinking water faucet and moving the Meijer jug to intentionally obfuscate the kind of water she was getting. In addition, she knows I always give her her precious store-bought water. Like she said, she drank the entire glass, then said it was the Meijer water. I said, “Yep.” Hardly a confession on my part.
"I prefer to call them dried plums, thank you."
I had to haul all the kids to the Doctor again yesterday since Katrina still seemed to have some sort of infection. While we waited, Allan began screaming bloody murder and straining again. Poor guy can’t even go when he’s just eating fruits and veggies! The previous Wednesday, I had actually watched him empty his bowels like he was a tube of toothpaste. We’re talking, like two feet of poop. By Sunday, I thought Allan’s pears would help him. Monday he struggled, but hardly went.
As the pediatrician walked in, Elena, Katrina, and I were yelling, “Come on, Allan! You can do it! PUUUUUUUUUUSH!” Allan was beet-red, on the examining table, with his diaper wide-open. Without missing a beat, the doctor ran out of the room and returned with a rectal thermometer to (ahem) “help” him out a bit. We knew he wasn’t finished, but he did feel some relief, poor boy! He went a bit more in the afternoon after much struggling and yelling.
So now I have to feed Allan prunes twice a day. I gave him two containers yesterday. We might have to up the dosage soon if we don’t get results.
